Free at Last
by trinfinity2001
Summary: Voyager makes it home, and Janeway and Chakotay both have bombshells to drop about their relationship. This is the third and final part of my "Three Wishes" series.


Kathryn Janeway worked the room of the latest cocktail party the crew had been invited to following their return. Celebrity wasn't she particularly enjoyed and it seemed everyone wanted a piece of her. It had taken her half an hour to coax, cajole and charm her way out of a half dozen conversations and over to the one person she actually wanted to speak with. But she still found him.

"Jean-Luc Picard," she said, smiling and offering her hand to the one person who knew more about the Borg than she did. "It's a pleasure."

The oddly British-sounding Frenchman took her hand and shook it firmly. "Captain Janeway. Or should I say, Admiral. Congratulations on your safe arrival."

"Thank you. We're incredibly glad to be back, as you can imagine."_ Were they ever._

"Of course you are!" he said with a cheerful smile, and gestured at a beautifully patrician woman who stood next to him. "May I introduce you to my wife? Doctor Beverly Crusher-Picard. She serves with me on the Enterprise-E."

Janeway kept her look of surprise polite. Inside, she was shocked.

"You serve under his command," she asked in disbelief, shaking the woman's delicately extended hand.

_Goddammit, she's on his senior staff and they're bloody __**married**__? _A wave of instantaneous regret threatened to consume her. If only she'd had their example before Voyager she might have….

_No. _

It wasn't who she was. She was never the kind of woman who was going to be sleeping with her first officer while in command on the same ship. And now Chakotay was with Seven. He would surely marry her, and Kathryn had missed her chance.

_Damn. Damn, damn, damn…_

Picard smiled adoringly at his wife before looking back at Janeway. "We did have to tell the Admiralty to put a sock in it about the fraternization rules. With all due respect, Admiral Janeway."

"None taken." She looked at him with some awe, taking her glass and swallowing an impolitely large gulp of wine. She could drown her tears later. Right then she had to do what she'd intended to do in speaking to Picard: find herself some interesting Headquarters-based work, now that she was stuck there for the rest of her career.

"So, Captain. At some point I'd like to sit down with you and see if we can revise Starfleet's policies on the Borg. We learned quite a bit in our numerous engagements-"

"Is this seat taken?"

Janeway knew she would recognize that voice anywhere. She looked up to see Chakotay standing next to her in a dinner jacket, white shirt and slacks, looking generally lovely.

_Dammit. Why does he have to look so good in civilian clothes? Or any clothes? Or none at all? _

She desperately ignored her internal dialogue and introduced him to her companions.

"We were just getting around to a topic of great interest to our newly-minted Admiral, here," Picard offered. "And I suspect, to you as well."

"Oh?" Chakotay asked.

"The Borg."

"You need to order another round of drinks," Chakotay suggested, "Because we're going to be here for a while."

Crusher-Picard put her hand up. "Waiter?"

#

Janeway walked out of the elaborately decorated hall and into the moonlit night, the translucent black fabric of her long dress blowing dramatically in the breeze as she walked. Her heels clicked on the pavement as she walked out on the Academy grounds towards the Bay. After a few minutes she reached the path that looked out on the water and the Golden Gate Bridge.

The closer she got to the water, the more the wind kicked up the dress. Why had she picked this damn thing?, she wondered. It wasn't like she was stuck with replicator rations anymore. She could've replicated something new. But the answer was simple: when she'd unpacked, she'd found the dress she'd worn to the Vretel first contact hidden in the back of her closet. The sentimentality had pulled at her.

_We're home_, she mulled_, so why in God's name am I so sad tonight? _

Janeway stopped at the edge of the path, looking out at the reflection of the bridge on the water below and drinking in the vista. It made her feel just the slightest bit less melancholy.

"I couldn't help but notice you'd run away from the cocktail party. Mind some company?" She could tell by the voice that Chakotay had joined her.

_There's my answer. _

"Of course not," she said instead.

"Are you as tired of these Federation soirees as I am?" he said. "What is this, the fifth one? In just the week since we've been home?"

The voice of the Admiral's daughter – or perhaps the Admiral—took over hers. "I think they're just trying to keep us entertained at night while we finish debriefing."

"Some idea of entertainment," he groaned. They both rested against the fence that lined the trail, staring out and the water and listening to the waves crashing against the bank. "Never thought I'd see it again," he said quietly.

"Me either," she echoed. "I still feel like I'm going to wake up tomorrow and we'll have our daily briefing same way we did every day for all those years. I think I feel more lost now than I did after I destroyed the Array."

"It's one hell of a case of empty nest syndrome, I'll give you that," he offered, and she could see him smiling wryly in the dark night.

She looked at him, intrigued by his comment. "147 children, all out the door at once?" She laughed, then sighed. "I'll miss them."

"Me too. But there's one I won't miss."

This made Janeway's lips involuntarily curl. _Seven?_ She felt ill at the thought. Was this the moment when he was finally going to admit to her what the rumor mill already had, that he was in a relationship with the woman she thought of as her only child? Then again, she'd noticed that Seven had spent the first few parties talking to the Doctor the entire time, and hadn't even shown up to this one. Something didn't make sense-

"You," he finished. "If you'll have me."

She looked up at him, instantly confused.

"I didn't know you and Seven ended your relationship," she countered, trying to keep her reaction to a minimum, to make him think she wasn't affected. "I'm surprised."

"We talked about keeping it going after we made it back…and I just couldn't bring myself to do it."

She balked at this. "I don't believe you."

His eyebrows snapped together in consternation. "I've known you to disagree with me, Kathryn, but never to accuse me of lying to you."

"This is different," she whispered.

"I hurt you and I'm sorry. But you very specifically told me to move on. Pulled rank on me, too, if I'm remembering correctly," he added.

"Goddammit, Chakotay, she's like my daughter," she snapped, then became quiet. "I never thought you'd choose her," she whispered. Hell, she hadn't meant to say that. Any of that.

He sighed. "If it makes you feel any better, she said it started out as an experiment for her. For me it started out as a joke."

"A bad one, I'd say." Bloody hell, had she said that, too?

"I'm not much for regrets, Kathryn. You should know that. We learn best from our mistakes. I'm not going to argue this with you because it's over. There's nothing between-"

"You married her," she snapped.

He was speechless. He looked as if he didn't know what had hit him. It felt like the air had formed a physical barrier between them.

She closed her eyes and exhaled sharply before she looked at him again. "In the _other_ Admiral Janeway's timeline, we didn't make it home for 23 more years. And you married Seven." Her voice caught in her throat. "There's clearly something between you, enough for a lifelong relationship. I'm not going to stand in the way of that."

"And I'm not going to spend tonight rehashing temporal mechanics 101," he retorted, the frustration now evident in his voice. "There are a million different timelines that could exist. It doesn't change the fact that I am here tonight with you, and not her." His eyes held hers and she couldn't look away. Music could still be faintly heard drifting out from the hall. "Dance with me?" he asked.

"Chakotay—"

"Please, Kathryn."

The last thing she wanted to do in that moment was let him touch her, especially in the dress she was wearing. But she found herself saying, "Alright."

He took her hand. When he placed his hand on her bare shoulder, the same fire she'd felt when she'd danced with him a year ago was back. Once again it was an inferno, completely out of control and on the edge of destroying everything in its path.

_God, I want this man. _

He whispered in her ear. "I don't think it's any coincidence that you wore that dress tonight."

"It's what was in my closet," she lied.

He looked right at her, catching her in her half-truth. "Anyone ever tell you that you're impossible?"

She answered him seriously. "Yes. You. All the time. I swear it's half the reason why I made you my first officer." Then she looked down, ashamed, and answered his question again. "I was feeling nostalgic. The dress was in the back of my closet. I didn't wear it to drive you mad, or whatever."

"Wishful thinking?" he asked. It was four years ago now that he'd framed their relationship in a dream of three wishes. "This is the third wish, isn't it? We're home. I'm alone and it looks like you are too. And if you can forgive me for a mistake, I'd like to ask Captain Janeway to take a hike so I can get to know Kathryn Janeway a little better."

For some reason, this brought a smile to her face.

"So how about it?" he asked.

She searched his eyes, the deep, kind and gentle eyes of the man who had guided her and supported her through their long journey home. This man, she realized, was a large part of the reason why they had made it back.

Yes, Captain Janeway could take a hike. And Admiral Janeway certainly could.

She stopped swaying with him to the music and spoke. "Genie, I wish..."

Her voice trailed off. He looked at her with interest. What _did_ she wish for, anyways? That he'd forgive her for dragging him along for years? That they'd live happily ever after? That she could forgive herself for letting him go a year ago? And then in an instant, she knew what her final wish would be.

_I am not letting him go again. _

She mustered her courage and spoke.

"I wish that my first officer will forgive me for my mistakes. Because I want to spend the rest of my life with him."

The joy that spread across his face was reflected on her own, warming her like the sun. His eyes sparkled with a mischievousness that matched her own, and he looked at her skeptically.

"Am I crazy, or did you just propose to me ?" he asked.

_Hell, yeah, I just did_.

She tilted her head back and forth playfully, feeling a little giddy realizing what she'd just done.

"Something like that."

"Don't you think that decision's a little rash?" He always had been the level-headed one of the two of them.

"On the contrary," she replied, "I've had seven years to get to know you." In her head the words repeated over and over: _please don't say no please don't say no please don't say no... _

"Anyone ever tell you that you're impossible?" he asked, grinning.

She had a quick answer for this, her broad smile now matching his. "Yes, you. All the time. I swear it's the whole reason I kept you as my first officer." He may have been shaking his head, but in his smile she saw the 'yes' that she hoped for.

"Yes, Kathryn. Let's make this permanent. I've been waiting for years." She could have leapt for joy but-

"Years?" she asked, suddenly surprised.

"Years. Now come on, we need to get back to the party before Crusher and Picard leave."

Now she was confused. "Why?"

"Because we're going to ask them how to tell the Admiralty that they can throw their book of protocol out the nearest airlock."

She looked at him mischievously. "You know, I do believe that's cheating. There's at least one Admiral you won't have to convince."

They both laughed. He laced his arm around her waist. She leaned against him and slowly, blissfully, they walked back to the party. This time, the fire she felt burned not as a conflagration—but as an eternal flame.


End file.
